The Women’s Balcony

The Women’s Balcony is a highly entertaining dramatic comedy about community, old traditions and values, and the power of women to keep all of these together in the face of modern extremism.

“Impossible to resist … makes a complicated subject both enlightening and entertaining.” – David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle

An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration causes a gender rift in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem, leading to a rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power. When the women’s balcony in an Orthodox synagogue collapses, leaving the rabbi’s wife in a coma and the rabbi in shock, the congregation falls into crisis. Charismatic young Rabbi David (Aviv Alush) appears to be a savior after the accident, but slowly starts pushing his fundamentalist ways and tries to take control. This tests the women’s friendships and creates an almost Lysistrata-type rift between the community’s women and men. (Dir. by Emil Ben-Shimon, 2017, Israel, in Hebrew with English subtitles, 96 mins., Not Rated)